Forever Young
“For the premiere in 1918, the Metropolitan Opera marshaled … Florence Easton, whose repertory ranged from Carmen to Brünnhilde, as Loretta, the doting Gianni Schicchi’s ingénue daughter who winds him around her little finger with the Top 10 aria ‘O mio babbino caro’.” [NYT]
You are wicked, La Cieca. As for Loretta, what a waist. All very Dior “New Look.”
I was just reading about Loretta’s relationship with her daughter — Clark Gable’s illegitimate offspring.
(Wikipedia, so might need some further corroboration.)
In 1935, Young had an affair with Clark Gable, who was married at the time, while on location for The Call of the Wild. During their relationship, Young became pregnant. Due to the moral codes placed on the film industry Young covered up her pregnancy in order to avoid damaging her career (as well as Gable’s). Returning from a long “vacation” (during which she secretly gave birth to her daughter), Young announced that she had adopted the infant girl. The child was raised as “Judy Lewis” after taking the name of Young’s second husband, producer Tom Lewis.
According to Lewis’s autobiography Uncommon Knowledge, Lewis was made fun of because of the ears that she received from her father, Clark Gable. She states that, at 7, she had an operation to “pin back” her large ears and that her mother always had her wearing bonnets as a child. Over the years she had heard rumors that Clark Gable was her biological father. It was not until 1958 though, when Judy’s future husband Joseph Tinney, told her that “everybody” knew that he was her father. Gable only came to visit Judy once at her home when she was a teenager; she had no idea he was her biological father.
Several years later, after becoming a mother herself, she finally confronted her mother, who, after promptly vomiting, admitted to her true parentage, stating that she (Judy) was “just a walking mortal sin.”
Very sad — and potentially operatic.
Well everyone knows that Loretta Young was a religious
fanatic and more Roman Catholic than the Pope!!!!
But — what I recall of the L. Y. show had her entering
by bursting through two doors, not one. Maybe that
was later.
She never appealed to me — those very long teeth!!
Too much Communion wine?
New role for Racette:
New Role for Racette:
New rolle for __?__
New roles for __?___
I love the clips of Loretta Young—I can remember when the show was originally broadcast, and what a clotheshorse she was. She eventually went to court sometime in the 60′s or early 70′s to keep CBS (I think) from syndicating the show in reruns—the argument being that the circulation of images of her in outdated fashions would be personally humiliating. Makes you wonder…
I fail to get the connection to Florence Easton, tho. Or is there not one? Is there a recording of her singing O Mio Babbino Caro? (A bit off topic, but I wish there was a way to upload audio directly to the site—I’d treat you all to Margaret Truman doing the piece on “Carnegie Hall Presents” in the late 40′s. What a treat!)
La Cieca suggests you try a free file hosting service like Media Fire. Once you’ve uploaded the mp3 file to the site, you simply need to copy and paste the URL into a comment. E.g.,
http://www.mediafire.com/file/tzmmcmznmwg/Cabaret%20Paris.mp3
Alright—let’s give it a shot.
http://www.mediafire.com/?w5adtl2zjjw
http://www.mediafire.com/?w5adtl2zjjw
I dunno why, but it won’t paste in with the little audio player. The link is right however, and it IS Margaret Truman, God love her Democratic little soul…
httpv://www.mediafire.com/?w5adtl2zjjw
httpa://www.mediafire.com/?w5adtl2zjjw
One more try, just because I’d really like to figure out how to do this for future reference. Turns out that there’s an option to see “more options to share” the file. Once there, there’s an embed URL. So here it is:
http://www.mediafire.com/?w5adtl2zjjw
I give up.